He failed to do so at the first touch, and, quailing, fled from Badelon's levelled pistol.

A watchman on one of the bastions of the wall shouted to them to halt or he would fire: but the riders yelled in derision, and thundering through the echoing archway, emerged into the open, and saw, extended before them, in place of the gloomy vistas of the Black Town, the glory of the open country and the vine-clad hills, and the fields about the Loire yellow with late harvest.
The women gasped their relief, and one or two who were most out of breath would have pulled up their horses and let them trot, thinking the danger at an end.

But a curt savage word from the rear set them flying again, and down and up and on again they galloped, driven forward by the iron hand which never relaxed its grip of them.

Silent and pitiless he whirled them before him until they were within a mile of the long Ponts de Ce--a series of bridges rather than one bridge--and the broad shallow Loire lay plain before them, its sandbanks grilling in the sun, and grey lines of willows marking its eyots.

By this time some of the women, white with fatigue, could only cling to their saddles with their hands; while others were red-hot, their hair unrolled, and the perspiration mingled with the dust on their faces.